1. Field
Methods and apparatuses of the exemplary embodiments relate to varifocal lenses, optical scanning probes including the varifocal lenses, and medical apparatuses including the optical scanning probes.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of medical imaging, technology for accurately capturing information about a skin tissue and a tomogram thereunder is required. In particular, since most cancers occur under epithelial cells and spread into dermal cells in which blood vessels exist, damage caused by the cancers may be reduced when the cancers are detected in the early stages. Related art imaging technology, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), or ultrasound, may capture an inner tomogram through the skin, but may not detect an early stage of cancer if only a small number of cancerous cells exist. On the other hand, optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology may detect an early stage of cancer if the cancerous cells have a size of about 50 μm to about 100 μm since the OCT technology has a resolution which is about 10 times higher than the resolution of the ultrasound technology, and provides about 2 mm to about 3 mm smaller skin penetration depth than the related art imaging technology. However, the OCT technology does not currently provide sufficient resolution to replace biopsy and histology processes, which are actually used to detect cancers.